Click the play arrow. Go ahead- you know you want to.
Gypsy caravan.
I could live in one of those. Easy. If I didn't have all these other people to think about, that is. I don't want to go for the whole gypsy/traveler stereotype thing. And the minivan already looks like a clown car when we all pile out, so my dream of caravan and piebald pony are probably not the most realistic.
So, I settle. Before, it was the entry-way/walled porch of our old house. Now it's a too-large walk-in closet. No joke. In my efforts to clarify our spaces and minimize the damage to organization that only children can demonstrate, I found myself staring into an artery so clogged it was impassable. Too late for daily aspirin, too late for Lipitor- what this space needed was an angiogram in the form of a total repurposing. And a couple very large trash bags. Five trashbags. It was five.
Look at it. Just look at it.
Notice that most of that looks like it might belong to me. What was I saying about children before? Well, the old trampoline is theirs. They rolled that in there. There was the pile of one child's missing clothing. Right in the foot of the doorway- I literally was standing on it when I took this photo. I didn't do that. Broken bench. Check. Box of homeless game pieces. Yep. That broken window thing, that was there too- and I DIDN'T DO THAT EITHER! I threw my yarn in there. In old ugly boxes. How inspiring. I hung up all the clothes I could wear except that I am usually in a uniform. So I don't wear them. So why do I have them??
This brings me to an awful realization. I am a terrible minimalist. Unless being a minimalist has something to do with keeping a lot of junk that you might use some day. When you catch up on all the requirements of daily living. Then you'll get to it.
I suspect that is not the definition.
But all of that aside, I have always had a tiny space. As a child, it was a basket underneath the table beside my mother's display at an art show. It was the lilac jungle behind our garage. It was the teddy bear room at Play&Learn. It was underneath the branches of the blue spruce that bordered our yard. In the interiors of my mind, it was the wheel of the year. The colors of the seasons, the months, the days of the week. It was knowing that if I was standing on February 16, if I stepped slightly down and to the right, I would be standing on tomorrow, and getting a bit closer to the sun. It was in favorite books and television shows- oh, those were a biggie for me. The Mayberry Jail, the yorkshire fells, the stairway on Leave It To Beaver, The Ricardo's apartment, Mr. Roger's house, the front stoop of Reuven Malter's brownstone, Calpurnia's swept yard, the garden behind Ella Bembridge's cottage. All of these places constituted home, place, nest- comfort- to me. And that's what this is really about.
Comfort, contentment- being the person I wish to be, and not the insane, hyperactive squirrel I tend towards.
Minimalism is a tool, an ideal- a good one. It is a bit austere at times, which is what I tend to run away from. I think I'm looking at a balance between minimalism and boring old organization. When I get rid of things I don't need- I feel good. When I organize the things I really love- I feel even better. I feel so great I actually get things done that I need to get done. Not a usual occurrence.
So the closet was repurposed.
Everything is organized, I know where it all is. Weird. It's my own strange little caravan. Maureen the Closet Monster stands guard, and in place of the piebald pony.
I just need a new tea kettle.
